Creating content for web pages often involves learning arcane editors or having specialized tools to locally edit content and upload them to a server. Such tools tend to be specific to a single operating system or tied to a specific browser or utilize an underlying database such that web pages are constructed on the fly from meta descriptions of the content.
In the first case, the choice of tools limits the user to specific operating systems or browsers. While this is appropriate for some populations, this does not offer a general solution for online or offline editing.
With a database approach, the performance of the web server is limited to the speed by which the underlying engine can generate HTML from the meta description. META description is HTML tags that describe the contents of a web page. The primary purpose of Meta tags is to provide a compact way to represent the abstract contents of a web page or to reference dynamic content.
The proliferation of client-server networks such as the Internet, and in particular the Word Wide Web, makes a large amount of information accessible to anyone connected to the Internet. In general, the layout language for a Web document is Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). Using browser software such as Netscape™ Navigator or Internet Explorer™, a user can make a request from a client computer to a server to access a document stored at a particular server. When the server receives the user's request, it sends the requested HTML Web document to the client where the document can be displayed. Originally, Web sites were created by writing HTML text files, line by line. Then, HTML editors were created and eased some of the drudgery of writing HTML files. Moreover, once a Web site is created, it typically needs to be maintained and updated. This is because information is dynamic. It changes as new information becomes available. Hence, maintaining a Web site has been an expensive, time-consuming, and labor intensive task.
Generally, Web editing tools fall into the following classes: (i) Offline WYSIWYG editor, such as FrontPage and DreamWeaver, that pull the content into a local program which allows the user to enter and manipulate the content in a visual manner with the tool automatically generating the HTML; (ii) Meta description tools which allow editing of block sections; (iii) Web page generators which take a template of information and then generate an initial page; and (iv) JavaScript/Java/Active X web editors which provide a WYSIWYG environment within the web page by downloading code which implements an editor.
(i) The first class of web editing tools includes WYSIWYG editors such as HTML Editor which has the following attributes and capabilities:
HTML Editor is a semi-WYSIWYG editor for an HTML document. HTML is a coding system for specifying the format of a text document, and for creating hypertext links between a document and other documents that accessible on the same computer or through the World Wide Web (WWW). The location of a document that is linked to another is specified with a Uniform Resource Locator (URL).
The HTML Editor generally supports the following features:                simple text editing.        edit text of size>32K.        insertion of common HTML 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, and Netscape tags through button clicks, menu selections and key strokes.        stylized text to indicate styles a browser may use when viewing a document. These styles can be edited.        undo and redo of basic tag insertion.        editable palette of user tags.        single key strokes for insertion of HTML escape codes for composed characters.        find and replace commands for text editing.        edit list of URLs from the current document.        setting of a root directory for the URL of a local file.        standard file dialog for constructing the URL of a local file.        switch to a browser such as Netscape, Mosaic or MacWeb with the click of a button. Switching to a browser will open a browse window for the current document.        hide tags for a quick document preview.        restyle complete document.        automatic styling of documents from other applications.        conversion of UNIX and DOS text files to Macintosh text.        conversion of non-ASCII characters from a text file or the clipboard to HTML escape codes for composed characters.        printing.        support for Internet Config Preferences.        support for Menu Sharing.        command-click launch of selected URL.        
Additionally, the user is also allowed to edit the HTML. Once the content is complete, it is then pushed back to the server for posting. Note that while these tools are often described as online editing tools, the actual editing takes place independent of the web server.
One common feature of this class of editors is the ability for the user to edit an HTML document by selecting and editing the individual files. The user is presented with a directory of individual files from where he can choose and select the required procedure. The drawback of these editing methods is that the user has to have prior understanding of the HTML document, and the user must know both the name and location of the file. Many users are however not aware of their HTML document's file structure.
The distinguishing feature of this class of editors is that the implementation is tied to a specific operating system such as Microsoft Windows™ or Linux. In general if the implementation is specific to an operating system, it will fall into this category.
(ii) The second class of existing web editing tools includes Meta description tools such as WIKI and PHP based servers. The generated content is not specifically stored as HTML, but as meta text or custom tags in a database or other file. These are online editing tools which generally apply the content changes immediately. Standard Weblogs are a good example of this type of technology. Yahoo lists a good set of the WIKI type on their site.
(iii) The third class of existing web editing tools include Web page generators which take a template of information and then generate an initial page. Often these tools are oriented toward a write-only approach such that a separate tool is necessary to edit the content once it is generated. There are many examples of these with most ISPs or web hosting services such as Geocities, and even universities including this as a basic part of their service for allowing users to create new web pages.
(iv) The last class of existing web editing tools includes JavaScript/Java/Active X web editors that provide a WYSIWYG environment within the web page by downloading code which implements an editor, are similar in approach to the first category of offline editors except that it is downloaded on demand. These implementations are tied to browser and runtime environments. Examples of these include “Editlet,” a Java-based program executed as an applet. The downloaded applet loads the HTML to be edited and provides a WYSIWYG environment implemented using a portable language which runs on the machine.
For example, a brief summary is presented here as to how a web page editor works as explained in www.webceo.com: Page editor works in the website centric mode. Browsing to the local copy of the website on the setup tab and one will be able to edit every page or a group of pages using other tabs. Edition of a group of pages is possible by saving one Meta description through all the pages of the site. Immediate changes can be seen while editing all headings found on a given page for that one need not go to HTML code but <H1>-<H6> tags are available for editing in the usual mode. ALT tags are used for editing pictures which are important to search engines and disabled visitors. It is very handy because the selected link is highlighted in the preview window. In mixed mode editing one need not have to switch between the HTML and WYSIWYG mode while editing the web pages. Both the views are permanently on the screen. Changing the code changes the visible copy and vice versa and it is up to the editor to choose which is to be edited first. Finding and replacing word combination across a web site either to replace all matches found throughout a few pages, at once or confirm every replacement also can be edited. The web page editor allows watching competition and evaluating their techniques. By using content tab not only evaluation edition of one's own web site but also can be applied to competition wherein their HTML code and content will be prepared for analysis and evaluation. By doing so one can exactly see what META tags, headings, ALT tags, anchor text in links their competitors use for their own pages.
In a typical client-server computer environment, the Web site is created and stored in the server. A typical user in a remote client computer cannot create a Web site to be stored in the server. The client may only access the Web site in the server by using a Web browser such as Netscape™ Navigator or Internet Explorer™. Further, it is difficult for the typical user in a client computer to edit a Web site stored in the server. Hence, a user with remote access to the server doesn't enjoy the benefit of being able to edit a Web site.